Boeing inadvertently made 737 MAX alert optional, denies there was a safety risk after fatal Lion Air crash last October
- Boeing said it only discovered once deliveries of the 737 MAX had begun in 2017 that the alert in question was optional instead of standard as it had intended
Boeing Co said on Sunday it had inadvertently made an alarm alerting pilots to a mismatch of flight data optional on the 737 MAX, instead of standard as on earlier 737s, but reiterated that the missing display represented no safety risk.
The US planemaker has been trying for weeks to dispel suggestions that it made airlines pay for safety features after it emerged that an alert designed to show discrepancies in Angle of Attack readings from two sensors was optional on the 737 MAX.
Erroneous data from a sensor responsible for measuring the angle at which the wing slices through the air – known as the Angle of Attack – is suspected of triggering a flawed piece of software that pushed the plane downward in two recent crashes.
In a statement, Boeing said it only discovered once deliveries of the 737 MAX had begun in 2017 that the so-called AOA Disagree alert was optional instead of standard as it had intended, but added that was not critical safety data.
By becoming optional, it had been treated in the same way as a separate indicator showing raw AOA data, which is seldom used by commercial pilots and had been an add-on for years.